Holy Cross Presents World Renowned Borromeo Quartet

WORCESTER, Mass. – The award-winning Borromeo String Quartet will perform at the College of the Holy Cross on Tuesday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. in the Brooks Concert Hall. The group will perform the complete string quartets of Bartok. Their concert is free and open to the public. For additional information, please contact the music department events line at 508-793-3528.

Established as one of the most important string quartets performing today, the Borromeo String Quartet includes Nicholas Kitchen and William Fedkenheuer on violin, Mai Motobuchi on violo and Yeesun Kim on cello. Hailed by the New York Times as “outstanding” and by the Boston Globe as “simply the best there is,” the Quartet will perform over 100 concerts this season in venues around the world

Based in Boston, where they serve on the faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music, the Quartet has performed in many of the world’s foremost concert halls, including Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, the Philharmonie in Berlin and the Dai-Ichi Semei, Suntory, and Casals Halls in Tokyo. In addition, they have participated in many of the most prestigious international chamber music festivals including the Prague Spring Festival, the Spoleto Festival in Italy, the Orlando Festival in The Netherlands, and Norway’s Stavanger Festival.

The Quartet maintains a strong connection to several contemporary composers including Osvaldo Golijov, associate professor of music at Holy Cross and world renowned composer, whose music they have performed at such venues as the Fleet Celebrity Series in Boston, the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Tanglewood, and Ravinia. The Quartet also works frequently with composers John Cage, John Harbison, Steve Mackey, Thomas Ades, Leon Kirchner, Gunther Schuller, and Gyorgy Ligeti.

Gramophone Magazine hailed the “great clarity and beauty” and “ravishing fury” of the Quartet’s most recent commercial recording project. Their first recording, the String Quartet and String Duo of Maurice Ravel, was honored with the Chamber Music America/WQXR Award for Recording Excellence in 2001. The Quartet has continued to win international recognition, with recent awards including Chamber Music America’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award in 1998, and Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award in 2001.

For the 98-99 season, the Quartet served as the Ensemble-in-Residence for National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” and is frequently heard on NPR. They work extensively with WGBH in Boston, WNYC in New York, NHK Radio & Television in Japan and KBS Radio and Television in Korea.

The Quartet takes its name from an area of north Italy where it played its first concerts together. Additional information may be found on their Web site at www.borromeoquartet.org.